There was death in the wood. The forest was comprised of nothing more than snow against brown earth that had once been rich timber and lush ferns. Fire had destroyed the territory and taken life with it. The thief picked his way carefully on broomstick limbs and small feet. His frame was light enough that he could stand atop the snow, though it flecked against his dark pelt and cast a beautiful picture of coal, fire, and ice against his flesh.

Tadec was wary. He did not know how easily he could have been overcome in that terrain. While he was swift and lean, the strength of the wolves had often proved too much for him. With sweeping eyes, the coywolf padded lightly atop the snowbanks. The thief shuddered against the cool touch of the winter winds, but he knew that he could seek safety on the other side of the dead wood.

Ignorant to her presence, the rawboned creature was intently set on slinking his way from one end of the wood to the next. With a cold shudder, his lengthy limbs carried him across the earth and into the trees; the green-eyed shadow followed behind him at a far enough distance that he could not detect her without purposeful searching. Tadec’s eyes swept his front, sniffing at the earth to pull the aroma of other travelers from the ground. The terrain had a strange sort of isolation that did not allow for many of the scents to linger for long. It was something that had left the coywolf feeling perturbed.
 
Pausing in his movement, the creature swung his head around and drew his ears so that they perked atop his crown. The burning embers of his gaze searched for lurking predators in the darkness of the wood but found nothing. With a soft sigh, the moonlighter pressed forward a few yards and stopped to inspect a seemingly abandoned hole for a rodent.

The wind shifted, and her scent was carried to him. The smoky crow turned his head sharply and latched onto her with a wide-eyed and burning stare. She seemed interested in a scent that she had caught, but it did not help him to feel any more at ease with a wolf so near. Tadec forced the reminder on himself; be cunning and full of tricks. Though he remained stiff-limbed and ready to flee, the moonlighter offered a fluttering of his tail and a smile that shriveled on his dark lips. There seemed to be a hint of a welcome in his posture, and he waited to see if the female would approach, or if she would turn from him to seek her own fortunes in the wood.

The woman’s voice startled him, as did the sharp verdant of her stare. He lifted a single paw so that it was ready for him to flee when he saw that she did not intend to cause harm to his slight figure. Drawing the pink of his tongue over dark whiskers, the thief took a tentative step forward and hung his head low, guarding the soft underside of his throat. His lantern gaze roamed her figure with moderate interest before he pulled his attention to her face and responded in belated Hedgerow, “greetings.” The beryl-eyed woman had still not expressed a desire to harm him, so Tadec crept somewhat closer and offered a thin, shriveled smile upon his inky lips.

The stranger returned his greeting with a question. While he was not entirely proficient in the common Hedgerow tongue, Tadec could still make out what it was she was searching for. The fire in his gaze darted north, where he had scented the sulfurous aromas that radiated from the warm springs. With a slight sweeping of his tail, the spindly moonlighter nodded his head. “Not far,” he told her, stretching the smile on his dark lips. Then, as if the idea had suddenly struck him, the crow flagged his tail and motioned with a sweeping gesture of his narrow muzzle in the direction she should go. “Tadec can show,” he offered; the halfling’s tone was genuine enough that it did not seem out of place for him to offer a stranger an escort to the desired location. With the breath of winter still clinging to the air, the thief imagined it would have been nice to bask in the heat of the hot springs and warm his tired limbs. He had trekked far, but he imagined that the woman had also ventured a good ways from her home. In this, he imagined they shared some common ground, and he was willing to assist as much as he could.

The female thanked him, and he swung his narrow muzzle toward her with a smile that revealed the tips of pointed fangs from beneath his dark lip. To him, the gratitude was not needed; he had no real set path in mind for his day, so she was a welcome distraction. Turning to lead her in the direction of the hot springs, the crow moved in light steps with a swishing tail.
 
Do you live in the vicinity? The question caused him to cast a glance over his shoulder and peer at her. It took him a moment to piece together the verbiage and to assume that she was asking where he might live. The spindly creature had never heard of a vicinity, and while that particular term perplexed him, he focused instead on the words he could decipher. “This one does not live in vicinity. Tadec lives in bear valley with Indra,” he told her pleasantly. Of course, the remark on his red-furred companion was not something that had needed to be shared.
 
“Does stranger live in vicinity?”

Tadec had only ever met one Indra, so his eyes sparkled with radiant joy when his companion mentioned knowing someone of the same moniker. It was a small world, after all. Small enough that the rickety-legged crow might have met a new creature who had happened upon the woman of Frith that he felt so devoted to. The smile that was offered to the slate-cloaked female did not vanish from his features, and he would have followed up with more questions had the green-eyed woman not stopped dead in her tracks and pointed her muzzle toward the sound of rustling in the brush.
 
Tadec was a fine hunter; his long broomstick limbs had allowed him to chase with vigor and catch creatures that were quick of foot and sharp of mind. The moonlighter paused with his mouth parted, ready for a question about her home on the mountain, and the embers of his gaze caught the fluttering and feathered form of a pheasant in their path. He crouched low and waited for her mark.